


There's Something About This

by nerigby96



Category: Martin and Lewis
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst and Feels, Anxiety Attacks, Comfort, Crying, Fantasizing, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hiding, House Party, Internalized Homophobia, Intimacy, Kissing, Love, M/M, Partnership, Religious Guilt, Secret Relationship, Sex, Tension, Touching, Understanding, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerigby96/pseuds/nerigby96
Summary: 1952Some house party, somewhere, Dean doesn't know. But it's too much, too loud, and he needs a place to hide.
Relationships: Jerry Lewis/Dean Martin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	There's Something About This

It’s easy to slip away. Easy, probably, because his little partner takes up more room. Holds their attention, once they’ve stopped expecting both men to perform. He’s louder, more fun. He screeches across the living room, pumps enthusiastically the hand of one of the servers, thanking him for hosting such a wonderful party. He seizes girls (and some fellas) in amorous embraces. People cry with laughter. Maybe their tears make it harder to see the other half of the team casually climb the stairs into the darkened corridor and the first bedroom he finds.

The door snicks shut. Dean leans against it, rhythmically beats the back of his head on the wood, grounding. The music is softer here, nicer. The murmurs, buzz of conversation easier to take. Then he steps into the room proper. He lights a cigarette and goes to the TV set in the corner, but thinks about the light and the noise and decides it isn’t worth it. Instead, he sits on the bed, puffing. Counting. What? Nothing in particular. Just numbers. He pictures them behind his eyes, and when he reaches fifty but his heart still hammers, he stands again.

Not thinking. Head emptying out. Dean toes off his shoes and crushes the cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand. He climbs under the bed, curls up, almost foetal. Taps fingers on the carpet. Rolls over and tries to make out the wooden slats beneath the mattress. It’s almost pitch dark. Comforting. He wants to take off all his clothes and lie naked on the cool floor. He imagines it is grass, not carpet, beneath him that prickles his fingers. Stars unspooling on a black sky. A gentle breeze in his curls.

If he wants it, a little house behind him, and a skinny kid inside.

But being alone is enough right now. Better, even. He takes a breath and lets it go. How much longer now? It must be after midnight. He doesn’t know how long is polite, doesn’t care. Just wants to wait and wait, until it’s time to leave.

He shakes his head, focuses on the grass, the breeze. A glade. Enough space to run and run, with a Virginia pine perimeter. White-tailed deer flitting between the trunks. And some creature high up, tap-tapping on the wood.

Soft tap-tapping on the wood. He cracks an eye. What’s that?

But he knows.

The door whispers on the carpet, and then: “Paul?”

Cruelly, he considers staying silent. He won’t – he never could. And anyway, his shoes are in the middle of the floor. But a part of him wants desperately to go back to the glade and the breeze. He opens his mouth and no words come, not even his boy’s name. So with a sigh he manoeuvres himself out from the centre of the dark rectangle and sticks a hand into the room.

A gentle laugh. The door closing. “Crazy Dago.”

Dean flips him off.

“You’re killing me, you know?” Jerry says, a smile in his voice. “You’re killing your partner.”

Dean hears his shoes cross the floor. Then clicks in his joints as he crouches. Dean watches long fingers stroke his palm. Tingling.

“All right, bubbe?” So soft and kind. Worried.

He nods. Still can’t speak. But the kid doesn’t need words right now; Dean holds his hand instead.

“I make you jealous, bubbe?” he asks. “Kissin all those fellas?”

Dean grunts laughter.

“Don’t be mad, Dean.” A whisper now. Still teasing. He leans closer, brings the back of Dean’s hand to his lips. Then more serious, “Fuck this.” Dean feels him shake his head. “Fuck these parties and fuck these people.” A deep, heavy sigh. “You want we should leave? I don’t care what they think. You know I only care what you want, Paul. So you wanna go, we go.”

Dean shuffles sideways and out, blinking up through the dimness at his partner.

“There’s my bubbe,” he says, slipping fingers into his curls.

There’s something about this. Being with him in the dark. If Jerry had switched on the light when he got here, things would be different. Dean thinks he would be able to suck it up and go back down with him, endure another hour of this. He’s calm enough now, he thinks. But it’s dark. And they’re alone. And Jerry’s fingers are making him see stars.

Slowly, Dean sits. Jerry helps him to his feet. They look at each other. Dean touches his arm, frowning.

“You wanna go?”

Dean heaves an almighty sigh and shakes his head. His hand slips higher.

“You wanna stay here?”

Dean nods. He has reached that miraculous spot on the back of Jerry’s neck.

“But you’re better now?” His voice is a little laboured; Dean can feel the effort not to squirm beneath his palm. He nods.

“Just wanted to check.” Jerry smiles. And then, very small: “Want I should leave you alone now?”

Dean takes his hand away and holds Jerry’s hips.

“Paul?”

He pulls him gently closer, hears his feet stutter on the carpet. Dean’s eyes are still adjusting, forming a picture of his partner’s sweet, surprised face. He waits a moment, short warm breaths on his lips. Then he tilts his head and brushes a kiss against the corner of his mouth.

They sit on the bed. They sit close. Dean gently strokes his friend’s cheek. Jerry leans into him; a pleasant little murmuring moan vibrates through Dean’s palm and all the way up his arm, his neck, to finish fizzing on his scalp. He alternates fingertips, knuckles, along his partner’s cheekbone, his jaw, the jackrabbiting pulse in his throat, then back up, stroking softly over his temples and brow, the tip of his nose.

He is so beautiful. And it takes the kid’s little gasp for Dean to realise he has said this aloud, announced it to the quiet bedroom, confessed it after, _Christ_ , how many years now? Dean swallows. He can’t understand where he even found those words, when all the others are long gone. There really is nothing left now, but it doesn’t matter, not when Jerry is holding his face and pulling him close and kissing his mouth.

It feels different here. Slower. Easier. Their mouths moving together, apart, tongues meeting each other like old, old friends, like there’s all the time in the world. Dean brings Jerry closer, swallows his sweet little sigh. The kid slides easily into his lap, arms twining round his neck. Somehow Dean knows that Jerry has toed off his shoes, and this knowledge brings with it another realisation, another inevitability, something that Jerry is preparing for.

They break the kiss. Jerry is straddling him. He leans away, raises himself up to look down at Dean. His fingertips caress his face, the skin behind his ears, the nape of his neck, and he whispers over and over that he loves him. He loves him. He’s _his_.

Dean hugs him, buries his face in his stomach, breathes the sweat and the heat and the thing that comes after. Jerry tips back, gripping Dean’s hair, sighing into the night. He shifts down, presses forwards so Dean feel how much he wants him. And Dean wants him just as much now, if not more – needs him this minute, this _second_ – and slips his hands down Jerry’s back, over his curves to his thighs; he holds him gently, lifts him easily, and turns with him to face the bed, to lie him down on the mattress and look at him there.

Feet on the carpet. The kid’s calves sitting on his hips.

All he can manage is a hoarse, soft: “Sure?”

Jerry’s breath catches. His eyes widen, flick between Dean’s face and somewhere farther down. He wets his lips. Then he nods.

Dean stands up straighter, grounded by the soft, insistent pressure of the legs on his hips. He clears his throat. Takes a breath. Put his hands on his belt.

The buckle clanks. The belt falls open. From the bed, quickening breaths, but the kid is still, waiting. Watching. Dean strokes his thighs, runs a hand over the bulge in the front of his pants. Jerry hisses and sighs, high and desperate; it makes Dean shiver.

Dean wonders how to do this. How to move the kid. What to do first. He thinks, as he opens his fly, that it ought to be more romantic than this.

He closes his eyes. Pictures a languorous undressing of his partner. Everything? That would be better. But maybe, in someone else’s room in someone else’s house, just the pants would be enough. And further back on the bed, maybe, so they can both be comfy. Dean sees in his mind’s eye large stubby fingers opening his partner’s slacks, sliding in the sides and pulling them down, fabric whispering over slim legs. Then his boxer shorts, cruelly confining.

On his back? Surely. He wants to see him.

When Dean can look again, he realises he’s already opened Jer’s slacks. His boy’s eyes are dark, his lips parted and glistening. His arms lie above, around his head, fingers opening and closing, fluttering. Dean starts to pull and feels Jer’s hips raise to help the pants slide clear. He can’t remember how many times he’s done this, helped his little partner out of his clothes, but now the dark polyester retreating to reveal tented white cotton makes the base of his spine flash hot. Jer’s legs are on the bed, and Dean misses their pressure, wants them back on his hips, realises they could sit there during, and Jer might even be able to lock his ankles and hold on that way.

He knows he is woefully ignorant. Jer, too, he thinks, has never quite been here before. But there’s something, isn’t there? There’s something about it. Discovering together. Like everything else.

The pants have reached his knees when Jer breathes, “Dino.” And his name, trembling in the darkness, sends such a wave of pleasure through him that he feels his whole body shudder; his knees loosen, and to ground himself he takes hold of Jer’s hips and leans down to lick and nip and nuzzle at his thighs. Jer squirms and keens and rakes fingers through his hair. Dino feels heat beat maddeningly through the cotton and almost loses himself in the heady scent of his partner. 

The murmur of partygoers below, the music and dancing that vibrates through the carpet and up his legs, demands something quicker, more urgent than this, but Dino wants to take his time. He tells himself it’s only for Jer, to make things perfect for him, and that’s part of it – he knows the kid wants that, will want to last for him; but another part of him feels selfish and wanting. Part of him knows going slow like this will be the most gorgeous pleasure.

His fingers are in the slacks again, pulling down, revealing more of this boy who wants him. Dino’s fingertips spark on Jer’s skin, ignite ripples of gooseflesh, elicit shudders and sighs and tremulous giggles. Whines. Dino chuckles, murmurs in Italian, in delighted bemusement, that it’s impossible, impossible for someone to want him this much, to be so ready and desperate. And Dino knows he’s there too, has been painfully hard for longer than is really necessary, wants more than anything to have him now, to stop teasing them both, but he can’t. He just can’t. It’s too much, too wonderful, to have this squirming body on the bed beneath him.

And they’re being so quiet. So, so quiet. Jer really is a very good boy, keeping himself so soft, so restrained, to force the noises to their lowest register. So quiet both of them, and thank God, Dino thinks – though God has nothing to do with something like this, he’s sure – thank _God_ , thank Jesus and Mary and Joseph for that, because in between the soft pleasures fluttering in the dark, they hear a horrible giggle outside the door.

And they’re quick now. Quicker than ever. Blood running cold. A second is all it takes for Dean to jerk away, for Jerry to scramble backwards, almost fall to the carpet. And both of them hidden, shoes kicked into the darkness with them, under the bed, to clutch each other, in time for the door to open on to a seemingly empty bedroom.

Silent now. Covering their mouths in each other’s shoulders. A lady talking soft, sighing as a man kisses her. The door snicks shut. Whispers approach the bed. Things fall to the floor. Springs creak and mouths and tongues meet wetly above.

And then, crazily, they want to laugh. In relief, in fear, but mostly because whoever they are, they would never imagine two grown men cowering beneath the mattress. They shudder with it, this repressed hysteria; Dean clamps a hand over his partner’s traitorous mouth.

From above: a sigh, heavy with desire.

Something shifts. Dean watches the kid’s shadowy face. His breaths go shallow, quick. His eyes close. Dean glances south and knows his friend is still excruciatingly hard. Knows because he’s there, too, almost, and getting closer as Jerry starts to stroke himself. Dean’s eyes widen.

Then the kid looks right at him. How can they see each other in the dark? But they can, eyes locked. Tongue wetting lips. Hand still moving.

Dean touches his shoulder, pushes him, rolls him on to his side. He tucks the kid against him, skinny back to broad chest. Like they do in bed sometimes. Just to hold him. To comfort. One hand on his chest. But not like this. Never like this before. He tries to tell the kid without words that it can’t always be like this. Just once, just now. Otherwise they’ll both suffer.

Above them, grunts. Ecstatic moans.

They settle briefly, listening, breathing softly, shakily. The bedsprings creak… creak… creak… and Dean moves his hips, matches the rhythm. Jerry gasps and cuts it off. Dean knows his mouth is clamped shut. He hasn’t managed to pull his slacks all the way back up. Dean pushes against him, rolling and grinding. They’re both covered in cotton, but it hardly feels that way. It takes a moment – the shock, the pleasure maybe overriding everything in his boy’s mind – but then Jerry pushes back against him. They move that way, using the bedsprings as a guide. Slow and easy, gentle, and then speeding up, and Dean whispering very low, hushing, comforting, asking, as he quickens and thrusts and checks his partner’s all right. Jerry is trembling so much but matching his rhythm, breathy desperate sighs fluting between his lips, nodding, and as a cry rings out above them, Dean buries his mouth in the short hair at the nape of Jerry’s neck; his hips buck and stutter; lights flash behind his eyes, and for one ecstatic moment he is holding Jer in the cool grass of his wooded glade.

Everything is very still.

Dean risks soft kisses on damp skin as the man and woman above murmur. _Leave_ , he thinks. _Leave. Don’t fall asleep you fuckers._ And they are leaving, as if they heard him. They giggle and stumble and bundle each other out into the corridor, letting the door close behind them.

Silence then. A sort of calm settles.

And then, awed, slipping softly into the dark, the kid’s voice: “I could feel you.” He turns his face into the carpet. Dean strokes his back, waits for the shy embarrassment of his declaration to leave the kid’s shaking frame, then asks gently, still panting:

“Finished?”

Jerry shakes his head. “I didn’t know if… if you wanted I should…”

Dean kisses behind Jerry’s ear. “You don’t need my permission.” A whisper, followed by the kid’s shuddering sigh; his skin prickles.

“Here.” Dean reaches for the front of the kid’s shorts. “All right?”

“Mm.” Almost whining, nodding frantically. Dean chuckles in pleasure, relief, licks sweat from Jerry’s neck. Marvels at the twitch beneath his palm. “ _Paul_.”

Dean strokes. The kid’s hips jerk. Dean waits, thinks. Then he keeps going.

It doesn’t take very long.

Once the kid has stopped breathing quite so hard, Dean gently turns him round. They make an awkward little shuffling dance of pulling up his slacks and giggle at each other. Dean kisses his brow and says, “I didn’t know that about you.” He wonders when all these words came back.

“What?” Fingers in his shirt buttons.

“You like listening.”

Jerry hides his face in the carpet, and Dean strokes his neck, saying, “It really did somethin for you.”

“Not that,” he says. Pauses. “Well. Not _just_ that.”

Dean chuckles.

Jerry goes on: “I was just thinkin…”

“What?” Running knuckles gently over his cheek.

Jerry looks up. His eyes seem to sparkle in the dark. “About all the noises I’d make for you.”

Dean’s breath catches. He flashes back to the bed, to those legs sitting pretty on his hips. Without meaning to say anything, he whispers, “I wish you coulda made more noise.”

“Mm.” Jerry shuffles closer, arms tucked against Dean’s chest, and nudges their noses together. His tongue flicks out, lingers, strokes inside. Dean endures this gladly. Then Jerry nuzzles Dean’s neck and sighs, smiles against him. “Quiet’s nice too, sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Dean agrees, thinking Jerry would have liked being quiet on the bed. “ _Ehi_ ,” he says, leaning back a little. “Lemme look at you, c’mere.”

They somewhat gracelessly emerge from under the bed and stand looking at each other in the darkened room. Jerry flicks on the bedside lamp and stands nice and patient while Dean plays Dad and smooths his jacket and tie, fixes his hair. Zips his fly, buckles his belt. Makes sure his shirt’s tucked all the way around. He glistens, sweaty, and Dean wipes his face with a handkerchief. They stand together in front of the mirror, checking.

They look okay. A little flushed, but then, with the dancing and drinking, so will everyone else.

“C’mon.” He takes Jerry’s hand and pulls him out into the corridor. They’re alone again, but the music’s louder, and the conversation clearer. Dean’s chest tightens, but the soft warm weight of his friend’s hand helps. They go to the top of the landing, hidden by the shadows. The stairs curve down, and if anyone looks up, they might see feet, but more likely they’ll see nothing.

“Paul?”

Dean turns. There are hands, a mouth, a tongue. Then he’s looking into the kid’s eyes.

“You wanted me?” Jerry asks, so soft and sweet and young. Unsure. _Unconvinced_.

Dean’s mouth has gone dry. He can only nod. Can only stroke his partner’s wrist. Notices that he is wearing the watch he bought him and taps gently the face. He offers what he hopes is a gentle smile.

And then, performing, and Dean wondering if this is the longest Jerry has ever gone without playing a part like this: “You _like_ me?” A hand slipped into his jacket, teasing the shirt at the small of his back. Pulling.

Dean laughs. Conversation, music from below swallows it. He ruffles the kid’s crew cut and says, “Yeah, I like ya. Wish I didn’t.” Joking, tempered with a quick tweak of his nose. But he meets the kid’s eyes, and something passes between them. Something dark and fatal. An understanding. With a barely repressed shudder, Dean realises he has the word for this. For once, his goddamn useless brain drags out, bleeding and broken, the English for what flickers and flares in his partner’s eyes. It turns Dean’s stomach, and part of him revolts, implores him to shut the skinny kid up, or just turn tail and march down and out, out of the party, back home, to bed, away from this. He wishes, prays he couldn’t tell that what he sees in Jerry’s eyes is _agreement_.

“Yeah,” Jerry manages and clears his throat to try again. Dean’s eyes go hot. “Yeah.”

Dean pulls him close and holds him as tightly as he can without breaking him. Although maybe it’s too late for that. For him, too, if the tight breathless cold in the middle of his chest means anything. The kid’s fingers twist in his shirt and Dean whispers that he’s here, he’s got him, it’s all right, don’t cry, baby, please. Kisses his temples.

Jerry leans away. His eyes dart. Can’t meet Dean’s face. Shyly, swiftly, he swipes an index finger at the corner of Dean’s eye. Then wipes his own face on the sleeve of his jacket before Dean can take out his handkerchief and make things better.

Dean’s voice is so thick he doesn’t recognise it as his own. “Let’s go. All right?” Stroking the nape of his neck. Tilting his head to meet his boy’s lowered gaze. “Let’s go now.”

They go downstairs still holding hands. No one says anything.


End file.
